Caption: Amythyst Kiah gets the Cumberland Stage off to a fiery start on Friday at Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion 2021, the festival’s 20th anniversary edition.
Photos by Bill Foster
Story by Luke Brogden and Bill Foster
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Here at Blank, we live for festivals–so much so that, even though we’re fresh off producing our own Second Bell two weeks ago, members of our team covered Railbird last weekend and divided and conquered this weekend to cover the opening night of The Outpost’s summer outdoor concert series at its new location and New Ground Festival in West Knoxville, as others of us booked it straight for Bristol. We had a man on the ground for Floydfest and we were prepared for ‘Roo, but that’s another story.
Having a staff chock full of veteran musicians, along with industry PR, marketing, logistics and production folks, we understand the absolute labor of love it is to undertake a massive operation like Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion, which in its 20th anniversary edition continues to include new contractors, vendors, artists, stages and more, ever-evolving to mirror the state of roots music any given year.
We empathize with the massive logistical headaches a pandemic poses for a major festival. For example, festivals are somewhat dependent on contract and gig workers as well as volunteers, partnering businesses, and of course stellar artists. The far-reaching implications of the pandemic undoubtedly affect the ability of any one of these departments to run fully-staffed with the exact seasoned pros who would typically all work as a village to lift and carry a festival through any temporary snafu quickly and smoothly.
As we saw at Railbird last weekend, the pandemic’s effects on festivals are no joke. Uncertainties throughout the planning process surely affected the producers’ ability to stage the type of festival they expected of themselves.
Certainly, Bristol Rhythm and Roots is experiencing this phenomenon as well. Yesterday’s liftoff was anything but smooth, with multiple stages experiencing power issues, delaying the start of the festival such that to keep on time, some acts had to sacrifice stage time to keep the show on schedule;.49 Winchester, a fiery up-and-coming country soul rock group from Castlewood, VA that has torn up the regional circuit and wowed crowds most recently at Floydfest, where they were voted as the favorite new artist, had to start late and end after five songs on the popular Piedmont Stage.
BLANK is happy to report, however, that the recovery was swift and audience morale remained high throughout the day, and we saw some amazing sets of live music.
The rich aroma of everything from kettle corn to curry permeated the muggy late afternoon, and the crowd swelled throughout the day, though it was at least 20 percent thinner by our estimation than most years. While unfortunate for the festival’s bottom line, it definitely made for smoother navigation of the festival footprint throughout downtown, as well as providing more ease for those in pursuit of maintaining social distancing, and the folks in attendance seemed in high spirits, happy to stop and admire various vendors’ wares, watch and even join in song with local buskers, and swarm towards the main stages for big-ticket sets like Folk Soul Revival (in one of their two final appearances as a band this weekend), regional native and international folk star on the rise Amythyst Kiah, and respected alt-country troubadour Hayes Carll, among others.
Local/regional music really seemed to shine on side stages with local Tri-Cities acts like Beth Snapp doing pro-level work on the 7th Street stage, as well as non-official sets on the patios of State Street bars, a few notable ones for BLANK being neo-soul vocalist and keyboardist TJ Darnell on the Quaker Steak and Lube stage and veteran Kingsport classic blues rockers Benny Wilson and Quentin Horton on the Delta Blues front stage, and Abingdon-based Fritz and Company at Borderline Billiards. Many of the area’s top performers are slated to play throughout the weekend.
Delta Blues, a newer restaurant and venue, has a stage in its front display window. Typically artists would face in towards the bar crowd but for the festival they’re positioned out towards state street like a band in a window, and impressively in the back Delta Blues also has a large covered patio and stage and somehow having the two facing different directions seemed to prevent any bleed issues.
Below, we’ll more specifically break down some of our favorite acts from yesterday as well as preview some of today’s shows we see as can’t-miss.
Luke's Friday Notes:
